Alexander Furnas writes:
Jonathan Zittrain noted last summer, “If what you are getting online is for free, you are not the customer, you are the product.” This is just a fact: The Internet of free platforms, free services and free content is wholly subsidized by targeted advertising, the efficacy (and thus profitability) of which relies on collecting and mining user data. We experience this commodification of our attention everyday in virtually everything we do online, whether it’s searching, checking email, using Facebook or reading The Atlantic Technology section on this site. That is to say, right now you are a product.
Most of us, myself included, have not come to terms with what it means to “be the product.”
Read more on The Atlantic.